Admire, Adore, Amour
by anxiousgeek
Summary: Bethany Hawke/Leliana fic. Bethany meets Leliana in Lothering and never forgets her. From Lothering to Kirkwall to Skyhold.


In Lothering, Bethany admired Leliana.

At seventeen, and an apostate, she didn't have many friends. Or really any friends beyond her elder sister Marian – who had lots of friends and Carver – who though friendship was a competition. Even with his twin sister.

So meeting Sister Leliana was both a wonder and a revelation, something and someone she was determined to keep to herself for as long as possible. They met in the woods outside the village. Leliana much preferred the scenery to the chantry, and Bethany always took the long way home. She wanted to run when she saw her, saw the chantry robes, the young woman sworn to to Andraste like the Templars to look mages away or turn them Tranquil.

But the redhead smiled at her, sweet and honest. Offering her hand, she introduced herself as a lay sister but Bethany didn't understand the difference, her voice light and musical with the Orlesian accent. She sounded dull and boring in comparison, she thought.

"I haven't seen you before," she said, holding onto her hand for a long moment, Bethany unable to pull it away. Either too scared or too enamoured, she wasn't sure which. "You don't come to services?" she asked.

"Um, not often. It's a long walk from our home. We're usually late," she managed to get the lie out with blushing too hard, "and we sit in the back," she added a little too quickly.

Leliana nodded, smiling still.

"You live here in the woods?" she asked.

Her voice was melodic and for a moment Bethany could forget she was always hiding, always lying, always alone.

"Just beyond it," she said, then gasped, realising she had given her home away, that Leliana could find it now, that she knew to walk all the way through the forest to their little house on the edge of the forest.

"I take it that was a secret," Leliana said, still smiling, always smiling. "It's okay, I won't tell."

"You won't?" Bethany asked, betraying every lesson she'd been taught by her father since setting her brother's hair on fire when she was seven.

"Everyone is entitled to their secrets."

She breathed, in and out, and then smiled.

"Thank you Sister," she said. Leliana touched a hand to hers again, gently.

"I will let you get home, it was nice to meet you Bethany."

The young mage nodded, turning away before turning back to speak, Leliana still smiling at her. So sweet and honest.

"Will I see you again?" she asked. "In the woods?"

"I hope so," Leliana replied. "But you can always find me in the Chantry gardens."

"I...I don't think so," she told her. She had to be honest, she couldn't help it and then they parted ways, Leliana singing to herself as she went one way, Bethany smiling to herself as she went another.

Bethany didn't go the Chantry gardens. She barely went into Lothering as it was, never alone but she did start spending more time in the woods near where she met Leliana before, just walking, picking flowers for her mother and hoping to bump into the lay sister – something she had discovered meant Leliana had yet to take vows. She wasn't sure what she hoped to gain by finding her again, speaking to her again. Except she seemed nice, and sang beautifully, and didn't assume Bethany was bad or dangerous or even remotely suspicious.

"Bethany?"

That accent, light and inviting, making Bethany smile even before she turned around to see the red head, in her chantry robes, heading through some thick bracket on the forest floor towards her. She was smiling too, holding her own bunch of flowers.

"Sister Leliana," she said, "I'm so glad to see you again."

They reached each other and Leliana, took her hand briefly in way of greeting.

"And I you. I kept hoping you would come to the Chantry."

"I – I can't," she said, "I wanted to, but..."

"I understand," Leliana said. "Were you heading home?"

"No, I was just walking. It's just nice to be out of the house."

"Then walk with me?" she asked. The mage nodded, and moved to walk beside her, through clearer parts of the forest, quietly at first, Bethany too afraid to talk in case she gave anything away. In case Leliana didn't like what she heard.

"Do you have family?" the sister asked, "I assume you do not live alone all the way out here?"

She hesitated, not sure how much she should share but then Leliana smiled at her again and Bethany smiled back, speaking.

"My mother. A twin bother, an older sister. My father died a couple of years ago."

"You miss him."

"We were close, he was my greatest teacher and protector."

"You need protecting?" Leliana asked.

"Doesn't everyone?" she asked in returned and the redhead chuckled. "Do you have a family?"

"Beyond that of the chantry no. My mother died when I was young, very young. I never knew my father."

"Why did you leave Orlais?" she asked, "I mean, that's where you're from right?"

"Yes, I, thought my mother was Ferelden and I spent many years here as a child before the rebellion. I consider myself as much Ferelden as Orlisian. More so."

"But why leave Orlais, I've heard it is beautiful, I've seen pictures of the Golden Spires in Val Royeax and the Emerald Graves..."

"Much of it is beautiful, but much more is bloody and terrible," Leliana said, no longer smiling and Bethany wished she hadn't asked for a moment. "Perhaps I will tell you some time. It is a long and sad story and you are far too young and far too sweet to hear it."

She frowned, wondering exactly how old Leliana was because she didn't look much older than Bethany's own seventeen years, though there was something in those blue eyes that looked terribly sad, almost broken, that she couldn't quote reconcile with the smiling woman. She didn't argue though, instead asking about Orlais, the nice parts, the beautiful parts and Leliana was more than happy to oblige.

That's how she spent many of her days then, while her Mother worried and her brother and sister joined the army, Bethany walked in the woods with Leliana, listening to stories about the elves, and Orlais, and myths from the past. Anything and everything the sister would tell her in her pretty accent. Bethany told her own stories too, a few she could think of that wouldn't get her in trouble, that would amuse and delight Leliana. Stories that didn't involve magic or running away from Templars and hiding from everything. It was nice, and she admired the way Leliana told her stories, liked the way she moved her hands as she spoke, wildly if it were exciting, slow and sweeping if it was sad.

Bethany hadn't been this happy since her father had died. Before perhaps.

Then one day, Leliana didn't turn up.

Bethany waited until long after dinner time, only going back as the light started to fade in the woods and she was sure she could hear her mother calling for her, panicked and desperate. The next day, and the day after, she did the same, waiting in the woods, in their usual spot until she was cold and scared and worried herself.

She went to Lothering.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd been into the village. Months ago, before she'd met Leliana. And not alone. Never alone.

She knew her mother wouldn't let her go, wouldn't take her. Marian used to, at least to the merchant on the bridge passing the village. And sometimes to the apothecary. Carver never took her, never went with her. Always went alone. Always so resentful for reasons she had yet to figure out.

So she went alone, trying to be casual, trying to look like she belonged. She'd never been to chantry before, but she knew where it was, knew who the Templars were, knew the faces of every single person that would lock her away without hesitation.

Except Leliana.

She trusted Leliana.

She approached another sister, wearing similar that Leliana but in a different shade and Bethany wondered what the difference meant and hoped to find Leliana to ask.

"I'm looking for Sister Leliana," she said, barely raising her voice above a whisper in case anyone heard her, heard magic in her voice somehow.

"She left I'm afraid, with a couple of Grey Wardens of all things," the young sister said. "Are you Bethany?"

Bethany gasped, almost breaking into a run. She only managed to stay still out of desperate curiosity to discover where Leliana has gone.

"Y-yes," she said.

"She left a letter for you," the sister said. "Wait there and I'll get it for you."

The young woman went into the chantry and Bethany moved into the shadow of the wall, eyes darting around, settling on the Templar who came out of the chantry watching him carefully as he spoke to a young boy and another member of the chantry by the notice board. She didn't see the sister come out until she was in front of her, holding a seal letter.

"Here you go," she said.

"Thank you."

Bethany took the letter, and tucked it into her belt.

"See you at services!" The young sister said, waving at Bethany skittered away, avoiding looking at the Templar and heading back into the woods, breaking into a run when she knew no one could see her, running all the way home and into her room to read Leliana's letter in the light of her lantern.

She cried.

Leliana had a calling and had to leave, had to go with the Grey Wardens and save the world. Had to leave Bethany behind. Bethany who had no calling, no reason to be and now no one to help find that reason. She cried until her brother and sister returned in a panic a day or so later and they had to flee.

In Kirkwall, Bethany adored Leliana.

She'd been in the gallows for a while now, the place a prison for mages but for the protection of nobles and Templars, not mages and poor people. The Knight-Commander cared little for the actual welfare of the mages, if at all, and as time went on even First Enchanter Orsino seemed to lose his way a little.

Bethany tried her best to fit in, but most of the mages had been there for life, since they were children and knew little else. The ones who were captured late like her rarely lasted long. Some never made it past their harrowing, some made tranquil. Others disappeared without a trace and she daren't think about where they really were.

As time had gone one, she was a allowed a little freedom; if one could call it that. Visits from Marian, sometimes accompanied by her mother, occasionally by Isabela or Varric. She missed them all terribly, hadn't seen Merrill since the Templars took her of course, though she wrote more regularly than any of the others. She was allowed out into the Gallows courtyard too, could look over the dock at the sea, talk to the merchants there, always under the watchful eye of the Templars. She struck up an awkward friendship with a few of the younger ones, those still not jaded by blood mages, struck up an uneasy truce of sorts with the Knight-Captain, learnt quickly who to avoid.

Which included which other mages too avoid.

There were the gardens too. She spent a lot of time there working on her alchemy and apothecary skills, picking flowers for her room and for the children that were in Gallows. It wasn't much, but they were young and hadn't had much since arriving in the Circle. Some had come from nothing too.

She thought about Leliana sometimes. When she was in the garden, sitting in the grass and looking up at the sky she thought about Lothering – the village long gone now – and the Lay sister who was also long gone. She wondered if she was still alive, there were stories about the Orlesian Chantry sister who had fought the Arch Demon with the Hero of Ferelden and Bethany couldn't imagine it was anyone else.

Where she was now though was a mystery though, and she heard little of the goings on going on in Kirkwall- let alone beyond the Free Marches.

Twice a week they were marched to the Chantry for services. Bethany didn't listen, didn't pray. She sat and remembered times she was happy. Before her father died. Before Leliana left and Carver died. Before she was taken to the Circle. She sat and thought about all those people she'd lost. The people she called friends.

She remembered that now she was the one who was lost, she was the one who was gone. They were all still there. Isabela and Merrill and Varric, they were all still there in Lowtown. Anders still in his clinic. Fenris still in Danarius' mansion. She had gone.

Then she saw her – Sister Leliana, talking quietly to Grand Cleric Elthina before services, the two woman clearly agitated about something if the way Leliana moved still meant the same. She still hadn't forgotten the way the redhead told stories, or the way she smiled, or even the way she smelt. She hadn't forgotten any of it because she held onto all of it because sometimes it was all she had, memories of Leliana in the woods around Lothering.

She managed not to run up to her, managed to walk slowly up through the main part of the chantry and stand in full view of both Leliana and the Grand Cleric while the other mages, Templars and parishioners took seats behind her. She felt them watching, watching, felt the energy of the Templars building as she wondered what she was doing, what she was planning, why she wasn't just sitting down to pray like a good little mage.

Except this was Leliana, and sometimes she dreamt about her.

Leliana caught her eye, not registering at first then stopping mid sentence. She turned to face her fully, her smile huge and still sweet, blue eyes sparkling and she had not change. She was even more beautiful now, dressed in leathers, a bow strapped to her back and knives on her belt. She had never looked dangerous before, Bethany had never thought her possible of it and even now, covered in weapons and dressed in armour she still looked sweet and stunning and oh Bethany had missed her.

More than her mother and more than Marian.

Leliana coughed a quick excuse me to the Grand Cleric, a short bow, before rushing over to Bethany and gathering her up in her arms. She hugged her tight, until the mage couldn't breathe, but she didn't want to breathe, didn't care because Leliana was warm and wonderful and she felt missed.

More than with her mother and more than with Marian.

"Bethany!" she cried, pulling back to look at her and oh she wanted to cry at the look on her face, "what are you doing here?"

She didn't know how to answer that. What to tell her? The secrets didn't matter anymore, everyone knew she was a mage, everyone knew who she was but she couldn't get her words out, couldn't tell her anything except,

"They make us come to services, twice a week," she said lamely.

Leliana frowned, looking her over in her drab circle robes and around at the Templars in the pews who had stood to watch.

"You're a mage?" she asked.

"Y-yes, I'm," she felt the apology on her lips, oh how many times had she apologise for being who she was over the years but Leliana simply laughed and hugged her again.

"And you didn't tell me!" she cried, "No wonder you were always so secretive yes?"

Bethany nodded, smiling, finally feeling the warmth from Leliana spread through her. Finally feeling warm for the first time in years.

"It is time for evening song Sister," Elthina said, cutting into their conversation and Bethany sighed, getting ready to lose Leliana all over again.

"Of course Grand Cleric, please, may we speak again later?" she asked, and Bethany moved again, headed back to join the others.

"My answer will not change Leliana," she said, "But come by my office after last prayers."

Leliana nodded, another short bow, and caught up with Bethany, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the back of the chantry.

"After services I want to know everything," she said, with that huge smile and they sat together behind some Templars, taking up their prayer books.

Once more Bethany didn't pray. Instead she thought about everything she had to tell Leliana. Everything she would tell Leliana.

Except they wouldn't let her stay.

Leliana introduced herself as Sister Nightingale, but it meant nothing to the Templars like it meant nothing to Bethany. And when she petitioned the Grand Cleric to do something, the perfectly nice Elthina didn't want to get involved. Didn't want to be seen taking sides between Templars and Mages, even if that mage was Leliana's friend.

They wouldn't let her come visit either.

Visits were becoming fewer and fewer over the months, more tightly controlled – one certain days only, at certain times, for a certain amount of time. Bethany was pretty sure it was down to the Knight-Commander's continuing paranoia over the mages in her care but no one listened to mages. No one cared except other mages and Orsino was becoming as unstable as Meredith.

While she was upset by her lack of visits from her sister and her friends, not being able to talk to Leliana, catch up with the woman hurt more, hurt hard and she was crying when her window opened from the outside and someone creeping into her room. She was unable to grab her staff but threw her hands up in defence, stopping still when she saw Leliana sitting in her window, looking sad and worried and so pretty even though the tears in her eyes.

Bethany rushed to her this time, releasing her control of her magic, letting it fall and fade away as she grabbed Leliana from the window-sill and pulled her into a hug.

"I didn't think I'd get to see you again" she cried into the red-head's neck.

"Not this time ma chérie," she said, smiling softly, pulling away from Bethany. "Come and sit down, let me dry your tears."

She did so with a little silk handkerchief pulled from somewhere in her armour. She no longer had her bow, but the knives were still strapped to her waist, glinting in the candle light.

"I have missed you Bethany, I am sorry I left like I did."

"I still have you letter," the mage admitted, dipping her head down, dark hair falling into her face and Leliana pushed it back.

"Still so sweet," she said, "I want to know everything, everything that has happened, and everything you did not tell me back in Lothering."

"I don't think we have time."

"I will find time. I do not have to leave Kirkwall just yet," she said.

"And you'll time me everything too. All the stories from travelling with the Hero of Ferelden?"

"You know about that?" Leliana asked.

"We heard about a red-headed Orlesian chantry sister who helped save the world, I knew it had to be you."

Leliana laughed, long but quiet and Bethany found the energy to laugh with her, at least for a moment, settling down on her bed. The sister followed, sitting close to her and she still smelt the same, soft and spicy and Bethany closed her eyes to breathe it in, to remind herself once more so she could hold onto the smell for a long time to come. When Leliana put an arm around her she squeaked, but let the older woman pull her into an embrace.

"I will tell you everything," she said.

"Including why you're in Kirkwall?" Bethany asked.

"Actually, perhaps you can help me with that," Leliana said. "But first, tell me, how did you come to be so far from home?"

Bethany told her everything. She had never spoken so much in her life, never used her voice so much and she felt hoarse when she was done, gulping down the water Leliana offered her, jaw aching from smiling so much. She had never felt so free, so happy.

So tired.

She fell asleep while Leliana was talking, while she was telling her stories about her time during the blight, fighting darkspawn, going to Orzammer and re-joining the chantry once she was done. She slumped on Leliana, only waking when the older woman moved her, settling her down onto the bed and covering her with the blankets.

"Don't go," Bethany mumbled, "please don't go."

"I'll come back," Leliana said, kissing the mage on the cheek. "Tomorrow night."

"Promise."

"I promise ma chérie," she said, "go back to sleep."

She mumbled something and slipped into sleep as Leliana slipped away.

Bethany could barely wait to see Leliana the next evening, disappointed when the sun set, and she could hear the bells of the chantry ring to say evening song was ending but she didn't come. Leliana had promised however, and Bethany trusted her even when she knew she shouldn't. She always had, even back in Lothering. She barely knew this woman, this woman who she thought was a lay sister but was really a bard, a spy, Left Hand Of The Divine – something dangerous as well as devout. But then, Bethany had her own secret that meant she was more than she had let on in Lothering.

She settled into bed, she didn't want a nosy Templar to come checking on her and finding her sitting looking out her window. She didn't want them to get the wrong idea and think she was planning to escape.

Though since seeing Leliana once more she was considering it seriously since she was first brought to the circle.

She woke up to another kiss on her cheek, lips soft against her skin and she blushed opening her eyes and smiling at Leliana who was looking over her.

"Sorry I'm so late ma chérie, I was with your sister would you believe," she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed as Bethany sat up.

"Marian? Why?"

"I was hoping to find a group of apostates called the Resolutionists," she told her, "have you heard of them?"

"No, who are they?"

"Dangerous," she said. "They are planning a mage uprising. You will be careful." Leliana took Bethany's hand and squeezed it tightly, holding it to her chest for a moment. Bethany couldn't help but look at the woman's chest, wondering what she felt like beneath the armour and she flushed red.

"Of course," she said, "I won't get involved."

"Good. I will be in Kirkwall for a little longer. I am hoping to convince the Grand Cleric to leave with me and return to Val Royeaux," she said, then took a nervous breath and Bethany couldn't imagine the other woman even being nervous, let alone seeing it. "Perhaps you could come with me?"

"To Val Royeaux?" Bethany gasped.

"Yes, the mages have more freedom there. You'd be safe and I would be closer..."

"I don't know what to say. What about my sister?" she asked.

"She could come too, whoever you wanted."

Bethany smiled and leaned over to kiss Leliana on the lips, surprising them both.

"I'll think about it."

She didn't get to answer her yes or no, didn't get to chose, because Anders blew the Chantry up and everyone was grabbing their staffs and fighting for their lives. She didn't get to say goodbye to Leliana, didn't see her again and once they were on Isabela's ship, safe and far away she cried. Cried and cried until they reached Gwaren and for the first time in a long time she felt like she was home, even if she had never felt emptier.

In Skyhold she loved Leliana.

The Mage-Templar war meant kept Bethany free, kept her out of the circle but meant she spent most of her time hiding again. She didn't want to fight, didn't want to be part of a war. She just wanted to have a normal life, always had deep down. She disliked her magic, and now as the Templars attacked mages on sight, she just wanted to be safe.

Safe like her sister and Isabela as they sailed around Thedas. Safe like Fenris in Tevinter. Safe like Varric and Merrill in Kirkwall. Except safety was as much of an illusion as anything Bethany could conjure up with her magic, Isabela had told her that when they'd first met.

She spent months traipsing around Ferelden and Orlais, going from dock to dock to send and receive letters from her sister, occasionally heading inland when the fighting reached her but trying to stick to the edges of everywhere. She was good at that, had been doing it since she could walk, had been hiding all her life. In fact, those years in the Gallows had been the most peaceful and the most restful of her life.

She went to all the places Leliana has told her about when they were in Lothering. All the places in the stories she had told her when she was merely a child. She was older now, wiser.

Emptier.

It nice though, to see some of the places she'd dreamt about all these years, every one reminded her of Leliana and those were pleasant thoughts, of pretty eyes and a perfect smile. She loved finding all the little secrets the red-head had divulged about the places, the little bits of history. It was wonderful but something was missing, not quite right and she got bored of always moving around and never settling down.

So when in the end, she got involved.

Or at least, let Marian drag her up the Frostbacks and into an ancient dilapidated Elevhen fortress that housed the Inquisition. Her sister had been insistent she come with her, she needed the company, she had said, they never spent any time together, they would be far away from the actual fighting and Isabela would join them eventually, maybe Merrill too and it had been far too long since she had seen either of them.

From the outside it was pretty impressive, huge and imposing and she was surprised something so big had been hiding so high up in the mountains all this time. Inside it needed a lot more work, but it looked like a lot of people were working hard to make it work, make it worthwhile. Nobles and peasants, mages and Templars, people working together like she had never seen before.

Bethany was already glad she came before she saw Leliana.

The Sister was now the Spymaster, dressed in chain-mail and a hood pulled over her bright red hair. She looked older, was older, but she didn't look as sweet as she had in Lothering, or even in Kirkwall. She wasn't smiling, her face so hard and serious, and for a moment Bethany wasn't sure she was even the same woman but, but those eyes...the sparkle was there in the blue, just and she smiled.

"Bethany?" Marian asked, and Leliana looked up at the sound of the mage's name in her sister's odd mixed up accent, looking right at her.

"Bethany," she gasped, dropping her letters to the floor of the main hall. They were stuck for a moment – it had been so long, so many years had past since Kirkwall, more since Lothering and they were very different people now, it was clear on both their faces.

Except, except Bethany didn't feel any different. Not with Leliana and not for Leliana.

She loved her. Had loved her since Lothering, that much was clear now and when Leliana finally moved, finally smiled at her, Bethany ran up to her and kissed her. Hard and with no hesitation, on the lips and pulling her close. Leliana kissed back, wrapping her own arms around the younger woman, whimpering slightly into her mouth and Bethany started to cry again, burying her face in Leliana's neck and letting the Spymaster cradling her and soothe her in Orlesian. She didn't understand the words but she felt everything Leliana meant. _Ma chérie, mon amour, je vous ai manqué. Je vous aime. Je t'aime vraiment beaucoup._

When she could breathe again, when she could breathe and think and manage not to make even more of a fool of herself in front dozens of people in Skyhold, she pulled away from Leliana, smiling at her. The other woman was smiling back, bright and honest and beautiful.

"Welcome home sis," Marian said softly, patting her on the shoulder. "Welcome home."

Bethany jumped on her sister then, hugging her tight.

"Thank you sister," she cried. "Thank you."


End file.
